Weekly REAP – Job 4

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1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2 “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking?
3 Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands.
4 Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees.
5 But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.
6 Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?
– Job 4:1-6

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Job’s friends bring a charge against him that he cannot handle his own medicine. Eliphaz is telling Job, “Remember all the instruction and wisdom you gave others when they were hurting and perishing? Now that hurting has touched you, you’re incapable of dealing with it. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?”

Bottom line, Job wasn’t able to sympathize with people, because he had not been through what they were going through. But Jesus has. Hebrews 4:15 says that he can sympathize. Then verse 16 uses the same word Eliphaz uses. Confidence…

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
– Hebrews 4:15-16

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Is not Jesus’ fear of God our confidence, and the integrity of his ways our hope?
Job was a very good man, but when he suffered he showed himself to be a selfish, bitter man. When Jesus suffered he showed himself to be God.

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Jesus, let me look to no other for my confidence than your perfection, whether in peace or in pain. My own integrity will always find a breaking point. There will always be a bigger loss or trial down the road that will shake my confidence that God is good. Thank God my hope does not rest there. It rests on the trust you placed in your Father, and it is not only perfect, but it’s finished as well. Remind me it is finished in those dreadful seasons when I question your goodness.

This post is part of my Weekly REAP series. I’m posting these from my personal journal to share what God is teaching me, and to give some practical examples of the REAP method. I didn’t write any of these with publishing in mind, so forgive me if they don’t always wax eloquent. Here is some more information on the REAP study method.